Qualcomm and Nokia said this week that they successfully tested nonstandalone 5G New Radio data calls over the air for interoperability, using both millimeter wave spectrum and sub-6 GHz.
The tests were conducted at Nokia’s 5G center in Oulu, Finland and used Nokia AirScale base stations and a test device featuring Qualcomm’s X50 modem and antenna modules. The two companies called the testing “a continuation of their commitment to interoperability and OTA testing for the deployment of commercial 5G services in 2019,” nothing that they conducted additional 5G NR interoperability testing at 3.5 GHz and 28 GHz in February. “The OTA calls are key steps in enabling customers in the 5G ecosystem to launch commercial networks and mobile devices from early 2019 onwards, in the United States, Korea, Europe, Australia, Japan and China,” they added.
Also this week, Samsung, Qualcomm and Verizon touted a 5G NR data connection that reached 1.7 Gbps, leveraging 400 MHz of bandwidth at 28 GHz. The nonstandalone 5G demo, conducted at Qualcomm’s San Diego labs, used a smartphone test device and dual connectivity; it relied on Samsung’s 5G NR and 4G LTE equipment, Verizon’s spectrum and a test smartphone-type device with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X50 5G modem and antenna modules.
In other test news:
-5G and internet of things company Inseego said that its 5G New Radio mobile network devices have “surpassed all performance objectives” in a live network 5G NR millimeter wave field trial with Verizon.
“Extensive end-to-end network trials conducted over the last several weeks demonstrated readiness for commercial rollout,” Inseego said in a press statement, going on to add that its devices were able to “consistently achieve over 2 Gbps of speed and sub-10 milliseconds of latency in multiple component carrier aggregation (CA) scenarios. … Inseego’s 5G NR test results exceeded performance benchmarks for use cases across ultimate broadband, massive Internet of Things (IoT) and many others with mission critical performance requirements.”
–Keysight Technologies is reiterating its focus on testing and test equipment-related services, with the launch this week of KeysightCare. The new offering has three service levels and focuses on keeping test equipment in good shape and improving productivity of engineering teams through options ranging from scheduled calibration, proactive notices of software and firmware updates, and access to its test experts to help with testing challenges.
-Along those same lines, analyst firm Frost & Sullivan has a new report on the impact of service-related models on the test market. Frost says that software-as-a-service and asset management models are bringing new companies into the analytical instrumentation space and that “in just a few years, analytical SaaS instrumentation and cloud-based alternatives to legacy solutions will dominate the industrial sector due to the shift in customer focus from instrumentation features to the ways in which the technology can help enhance business outcomes.”
“As the data collected from instruments can potentially deliver more value than the hardware, there is high demand for analytical instruments that mine data and convert it into actionable insights,” said Mariano Kimbara, senior industry analyst in the industrial group at Frost & Sullivan, in a statement. “Consequently, service providers are delivering software solutions that help digitize lab operations by intelligently connecting people, processes, data, and instruments. These solutions will allow users to target services more strategically, better utilize assets, reduce downtime, and plan program schedules.”
-Service assurance and analytics company MYCOM OSI has been acquired by private equity Inflexion, which said that the telecom industry’s transition to 5G and internet of things services represents a significant opportunity for MYCOM OSI’s cloud-based assurance solutions. Read the full story here.
-The American National Standards Institute, or ANSI, has agreed to acquire full control of the ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board (ANAB), which was previously jointly owned by ANSI and the American Society of Quality. That transaction is slated to close late this month, and the board will be renamed the ANSI National Accreditation Board — although the ANAB acronym will remain the same.
